


A Handsome Stranger

by celticheart72



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, First Kiss, First Meetings, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:07:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24098548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celticheart72/pseuds/celticheart72
Summary: When a previous date gone wrong shows up a handsome stranger comes to your rescue.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Comments: 6
Kudos: 123





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: none
> 
> This one was written for a Tumblr writing challenge with the prompt "Just pretend to be my date."
> 
> Inspired in part by a scene between Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine after they leave the club in This Means War.

You pace back and forth inside the bathroom, thankfully alone for the moment. Panicked thoughts race through your head while you wear a path over the crappy floor tiles with your heels. Every so often when you turn your toe hits the corner of a broken tile and you come close to tripping. 

Wouldn’t that just be the icing on the cake?

Trip on a broken tile in a shitty bar bathroom and break your brain.

Shaking your head at the thought you turn and lift your foot in time to avoid one of said broken tiles just as your phone buzzes in the pocket of your dress. You yank it out of the fabric so violently the front of the dress almost flies over your head. Thankfully only the mirror is witness to your shame.

The message is from your best friend. Rolling your eyes you unlock your phone and open it.

_ Teri: kyle and I made it to his place, u home yet? _

_ You: No, I’m still in the bathroom. _

_ Teri: for 20 fucking minutes? wtf? are you dying or something? that uber is gone by now!! _

_ You: I know, I know. That last drink didn’t agree with me. I’m getting ready to leave.  _

You rub your fingers over your forehead and sigh, you hate lying to her. Had she known the creepy guy you went on a date with a few months ago was at the bar she and her boyfriend never would have left you alone. 

It’s not even that he’s creepy per se. Well, maybe he is. He was overly clingy for a first date and got really insulted when you wanted to take a cab home rather than give him your address so he could drive you. 

Deciding that hiding in the bathroom all night is not a solution to your problem you march to the door. In the process, you trip over one of the broken tiles and practically throw yourself into the hallway. Thankfully, once again, no one is around to see what a total clutz you are. You smooth the fabric of your dress down and start walking to the bar’s exit. Halfway there you catch sight of your clinger and run right into a wall of muscle because, of course, you’re not paying any attention.

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry,” you stumble back and are dangerously close to falling on your ass.

“Careful doll,” a hand closes around your upper arm to steady you, and if you’re not mistaken it feels a bit like metal.

You look up to find a pair of the prettiest blue eyes you’ve ever seen looking back. The eyes are set into a scruffy face that doesn’t look like it often sees a smile but there’s a flicker of one when the man looks down at you. 

“I’m really sorry,” you ramble out, “I didn’t mean to run into you like that!”

That earns you a wide smile and it lights up his entire face, “Pretty sure you can’t do much damage to me that hasn’t already been done.” His brow furrows when you crane your head to look around him then immediately try hiding behind the breadth of his shoulders. “Are you alright?”

“I know you don’t know me, but can you just pretend to be my date?” 

He looks vaguely skeptical and one brow arches, “Okay, but…”

“Kiss me,” you whisper urgently as you see clinger getting even closer.

“What?” His hands moved to cup your elbows when you get closer to him but he’s also not pushing you away. 

This has got to be the weirdest encounter this guy has ever had with a woman, you think to yourself as you push up on your toes and loop your arms around his neck. “Please, I’ll explain later.”

“Alright, doll,” he bends his head and when his lips touch yours you literally feel like sparks are flying in every direction. 

Your lips tingle, the skin of your ears and neck tingle, your hands laying over his muscular back tingle. 

Other things tingle. 

One of his hands reaches up to caress your cheek and you melt at the gentle touch as he hooks a lock of your hair behind your ear then breaks the kiss, leaning his forehead on yours.

“Please tell me you don’t have a girlfriend,” you whisper as clinger moves right past you to the bar and you relax just slightly.

“No,” he chuckles and his eyes flick behind you. “He an ex?”

You shake your head and wonder just how he knew who you were trying to avoid, “He was a date gone wrong. Thank you for not thinking I’m a crazy person.”

The man takes one last look at your clinger then his gaze drops back to you and he offers his hand, “C’mon, you hungry?”

“Yeah, I am actually,” you take his hand and let him lead you out to the sidewalk where he drops it and stuffs both of his into his pockets.

“I know a diner around the corner that’s open all night. I get the feeling this might take a while to explain?” He grins and you still get the impression he doesn’t have occasion to smile much. It’s then, as you look up at him in the light of the streetlamp, that you realize his hair is actually somewhat long and he has it pulled back into a man bun. 

“Yeah,” you laugh lightly, returning the grin that still lingers on his lips and try not to let your thoughts wander to that amazing impromptu kiss, “it just might. What’s your name, by the way? When I tell my best friend I was saved by this handsome stranger I’d at least like to have your name to give her.”

It’s faint but you can see a flush creep over his cheeks as he moves to the outside of the sidewalk and you start walking in the direction of the diner. “James Buchanan Barnes. But my friends call me Bucky.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six months later Bucky has some heavy thoughts about you and your relationship.

Bucky absently brushes the hair from your face and his eyes close at the feeling of your breath on his neck. It’s a simple thing really. To feel your breath touch lightly over his skin while you sleep. The feeling is just something he never thought he’d have after living so long as the Winter Soldier and it feels good. Better than good. He feels like a man again instead of a construct even if only for a moment. 

Sure Shuri got Hydra’s programming out of his head. He’s been pardoned in exchange for working with SHIELD and the Avengers. Most people don’t blame him, Bucky Barnes, for what the Soldier did. 

He still does. He always will.

You don’t though and he’ll never understand why.

His eyes open again and move to your face. They trace over the line of your cheekbone and curve of your jaw, sweep your full lips and over your pert nose, before resting on your eyes, closed in sleep. You look so peaceful with your head resting on his shoulder. His metal shoulder. Something you’ve never even blinked an eye at. It’s a part of him as much as his blue eyes or reluctant smile you tell him.

That first night in the diner he told you everything about who he is. Bucky still isn’t even sure why he did, but something about you settled that part of his mind that is always ready to run. When you didn’t seem afraid of him he couldn’t figure out why. You sat in the booth across from him, listening to his every word, and when he was done talking you reached out your hand to take his. His left one. His metal hand. 

It wasn’t the hand that Hydra built anymore. Shuri had crafted something new for him. Bucky still can’t help feeling like it’s a weapon, one that hurts more than it soothes. Sam tells him that’s his guilt talking. Guilt that he shouldn’t be holding onto anymore but he can’t help it. He hurt so many people as the Soldier, tore apart so many families, took so many lives. It’s hard to let the guilt go.

Bucky sighs and tightens his arm around your back just slightly, enough to pull you a little closer into his chest. He scrubs his other hand over his face and stares up at the ceiling. Wondering when it’s all going to be taken away from him. 

You’ve told him so many times that you aren’t going anywhere but it’s not you leaving him that he’s worried about. One thing he’s learned in the last six months is that you love him fiercely and are loyal to a fault. So no, it’s not you leaving him that he worries about. It’s someone taking you away from him, hurting you to get back at him that worries him. Though you’ve also reminded him you’re more likely to seriously injure yourself tripping over your own feet than you are to find yourself in the hands of one of his enemies.

The thought prompts a soft snort of laughter from him. You are accident prone. Last night you smacked your head on the freezer door while you were in the refrigerator. Head injury number five thousand and seventy five you laughed when he ran into the kitchen at your yelp of pain. Since the first night you met you’ve called yourself a hot mess and he can’t entirely disagree. But you’re his hot mess and he’s thankful for whatever divine intervention brought him into the same bar you were in that night six months ago. 

He sighs again, turning toward you slightly and wrapping his other arm around you, burying his nose in your hair at the same time. Coconut and pears. You always seem to smell like coconut and pears and the scent has grown on him to the point that he finds himself picking up the fruit at the grocery store. 

“What’s on your mind, Bucky?” Your voice floats up to his ears from the vicinity of his neck where he can feel your lips brushing over his skin.

Bucky smiles against your forehead, pressing a kiss there and shaking his head, “Nothing, just thinking how lucky I am.”

“Did you win the lottery?”

“No,” he chuckles at your exaggerated excited tone.

You lift your head to smile at him and rest your chin over your balled up hand when he loosens his grip on you. “Win a trip to Paris?”

“No.”

His hands go to your shoulders to help steady you as you push up from his chest and pretend to consider his luck. 

“I know!” You exclaim, drawing another amused chuckle from Bucky, “You have the day off and are going to take your girlfriend for a ride on your motorcycle.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it, doll,” his smile widens as he brushes his hand over your cheek and pushes a lock of hair behind your ear. The way you’re looking at him pushes the ever present thoughts of running out of his mind. He loves you too much to ever hurt you like that. All the fear and doubt aside, you’re the brightest spot in his life and he knows the chance he was given. 

He watches you bounce out of bed, nearly tripping over the sheets in the process and shakes his head in amusement as you disappear into the bathroom. 

Bucky sits up on the side of the bed and drops his head into his hands. Lucky or not, he can’t help but wonder if after all he’s done if he just shouldn't let you go. There are so many excuses he can reason why he should, and every single one Sam has told him more than once is stupid.

His eyes lift when the bathroom door opens and he finds you standing in the doorway, with a smile on your face and steam swirling around you. You crook a finger at him and once again all the doubt and fear fades. He loves you and even if he struggles with these feelings for the rest of his life he knows you were meant for him and he’s going to do his level best to do right by you. So he stands and scoops you up in his arms, your giggles lightening his heart just enough that the burdens on his shoulders don’t weigh him down.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like my work kudos are appreciated. If you love it comments are wonderful. If you have constructive criticism or questions let's talk. If you leave blatantly rude or negative comments, know that no hate is allowed here and will be deleted. And if you read my work and are too shy to interact right now, know that's okay too.


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